Discrimination

The theme of discrimination is clear in “Daughter-Mother-Maya-Seeta.” The speaker and her daughters are mistaken for, or assumed to be, servants in the restaurants and hotels they visit, rather than being acknowledged as equals of the other patrons. It is because of their brown skin, the poem implies, that this discrimination occurs. Another undercurrent of discrimination occurs in line 23 of stanza 1, which immediately follows the telling of the hotel and restaurant experiences: “Today I'm a civil servant on the Hill.” Although discrimination is not overtly stated in this line, its association with the previous statements of discrimination suggests that the speaker is giving another example of being perceived as having a lower status. The word “servant” is closely related to what the men in the hotels assume the women to be. There is also irony in the last line of stanza 1. A civil servant earns a good living...